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Convert to vector?

I have a customer who wants to print one of my pictures on a T-Shirt. The T-Shirt printer asked if I could give him a vector drawing.

So, here I am...is there an easy way to convert an Art Rage drawing to a vector drawing?

I have at my disposal, 1) the original pic in Art Rage(obviously), 2) Adobe PhotoShop 7.0, 3)Adobe CS2 and 4)Paint Shop Pro 9.

I'm not sure if I can export the pic as like a TIFF or PNG and then convert the layers to vectors etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Last edited by Little_John; 04-29-2009 at 07:59 AM.

J. LittleI'm no artist, just a junkie with a pencil...
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You can check out my photography on...http://www.anganjohnphoto.com ---------------------------------------------------

From the programs you've listed so far, it sounds like the only images you'll be able to produce are raster graphics. You'd need a program like Adobe Illustrator to create a true vector image (I've seen other members here list some free vector programs as well, but I'm unfamiliar with them).

Even with the proper program it's not usually a simple "open image and covert" sort of process. Raster graphics are made up of pixels, while vector graphics are rendered using lines, arcs, and points. While some programs allow you to make conversions, the results are often not exactly what one would hope for (at least from my experiences with it). To learn more on the differences you may find these links helpful: Raster Graphics and Vector Graphics.

Did the printer give you any specific reasons for needing the image as vector, such as the image had to many colors involved for a cost efficient print or that image needed to be resized?

Yes, the printer said that they could only use 3 colors...would have been nice to know before I started drawing, but oh well.

I forgot about Illustrator, I think I have a copy of that laying around somewhere.

Yeah, I was kind of hoping for a "open and convert' kind of function, maybe a save as pdf and open with program x. Guess nothing is ever simple.

Thanks a lot for the reply and the links.

J. LittleI'm no artist, just a junkie with a pencil...
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You can check out my photography on...http://www.anganjohnphoto.com ---------------------------------------------------

Check out http://vectormagic.com/ -- their program is AMAZING at converting bitmaps (like our paintings) to vectors. It's free for the first two images they do, as well. It works directly from the web page, or you can download (and buy, it's expensive!) the (Windows only) program.

WARNING: ArtRage can cause serious loss of time, and excessive smiling! Use with care! Frequently!

Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/) is a free vector drawing tool. Despite what they say, it's not really that close to Illustrator, but it does have a "Trace Bitmap" feature. Don't expect it to do magic, you need fairly clear lines for this to work, but this applies to any tool of this type. Of course you can fix the result manually. Or you could trace your bitmap manually anyway...

All, thanks for the help. I basically just told the T-shirt printer that I couldn't do it any easier than he could. It sucks, but he's getting paid for the T-Shirts...I did the art pro bono because it was for charity.

Yachris - I gave the T-Shirt guy your link, he does his tracing by hand and says it takes him like 2 hours...ouch. Maybe $300 is worth it to them.

Danny - Thanks for the link...I'll check it out.

Alain - Yep. Would have been easier, but they didn't tell me they needed a vector drawing, they just said they wanted some art work for a shirt for their Charity Golf Tournament. Ah well...live and learn.

So, thanks everyone for the great advice. I really appreciate it.

J. LittleI'm no artist, just a junkie with a pencil...
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You can check out my photography on...http://www.anganjohnphoto.com ---------------------------------------------------

Yachris - I gave the T-Shirt guy your link, he does his tracing by hand and says it takes him like 2 hours...ouch. Maybe $300 is worth it to them.

Probably is, if they do a lot of those... it would DEFINITELY speed up the process.

However, you can buy their "Tokens" that let you pay for (I think) as few as five conversions, and then you just use them whenever you want. It's a lot cheaper in the short run, and they do give you two free tokens to try it out.

WARNING: ArtRage can cause serious loss of time, and excessive smiling! Use with care! Frequently!

yachris - Maybe they will see the token thingy...I missed it completely. Thanks for the great info, I'll keep it in mind if I ever have to do something like this again.

J. LittleI'm no artist, just a junkie with a pencil...
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You can check out my photography on...http://www.anganjohnphoto.com ---------------------------------------------------